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Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe


How much money do videogame movies actually make?

Amazingly some of them bring in big bucks at the box-office

Words: Matt Cundy, GamesRadar UK

Yeah, yeah, videogame movies suck. We're bored of saying it. But regardless of the suckage and widespread critical kicking they receive, they just keep on coming. Why so? We doubt that they're made for the love of it, so it must be because they can actually make a few bucks at the box-office. Can it really be true and, if so, how much money do video game movies actually make?

We picked 10 videogame movies and found out how much each earned at box-offices worldwide. We were pretty gobsmacked to find out just how lucrative some of them have been...

Has the honour of being the most successful game-to-movie adaptation at the box office EVER. Perhaps not surprising given Lara Croft's iconic status and Angelina Jolie's incredible hotness. It was universally pissed upon by critics. Still, that didn't stop it making more money at cinemas than The Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather, Pulp Fiction and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Yeah, we're not sure we can believe it either.

The original made Paramount a nice little packet. The sequel? Not so much. It still had a pretty lavish budget so execs were obviously a bit sad about the diminished returns. Paramount tried to blame the dramatic downturn on the recognised crapness of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. But everyone knew it was just because the first film was a lot of dump. To avoid further embarrassment and pain, Paramount put the kibosh on a planned third Lara Croft film.

The most successful of the Resi trilogy, the second film made a considerable amount of moolah at the box office on a pretty modest budget. And that's despite the fact that Milla Jovovich was pretty much the film's only redeeming feature. It wasn't very good, but it still motivated more people to shamble to the cinema than most other zombie flicks you could mention. More than any Romero film. More than Zack Snyder's 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. More than 28 Days Later. More than Shaun of the Dead. Between them the three Resident Evil movies have grossed a total of $379,553,746. Which is a lot of money.

Below average martial arts pantomime piece starring Christopher Lambert that cashed in nicely on the continuing fuss surrounding the games. Kids went along hoping to see spine-ripping fatalities, but just got a lot of PG-13 weakness. In US cinemas it actually did more business than Tarantino's deliciously violent Kill Bill. Worldwide it's made more than Jackie Chan 'funny' Shanghai Noon and even grossed $21 million more than Stephen Chow's stupidly good Kung Fu Hustle. There is no justice. A new MK movie is currently scheduled for 2010.

No one had heard of director Xavier Gens and lead actor Timothy Olyphant is no Brad Pitt. So, given that the only people who would have any interest at all in this movie would be gamers - and maybe anyone with a lust for bald-headed bar-coded killers - the $100 million box-office bucks surely has to be seen as a more than satisfactory return. In comparison, assassination flick Lucky Number Slevin made $56 million at box-offices and that starred Bruce Willis, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Liu, Josh Hartnett and Morgan Freeman.


 
36 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
xFnKxTaLeNtx  - 7 months 22 days ago 
First! wow I actually thought they would make a lot more money.
Bossco  - 7 months 22 days ago 
Good article but how much money did the actual games make compared to the movies? Or have you already done that feature?
Kattleox  - 7 months 22 days ago 
I'm glad to see that all the lousy ones are massive failures.
vic88  - 7 months 22 days ago 
ugh horrible movies cant be forgotten, must redeem self by playing there game counterparts... ahh thats more lke it
KaylaKaze  - 7 months 22 days ago 
I'd never even heard of the DOA movie (or I just confused it with the Japanese DOA movies). I liked most of the movies on this list (with the exception HOTD and Mario and I haven't seen the Tomb Raiders).
GamesRadar_MattCundy  - 7 months 22 days ago 
@Bossco
Game publishers are much more cagey about budgets and earnings than movie distributors. Success is measured more in number of copies sold, not amount of dollars made.
Themis  - 7 months 22 days ago 
For anyone who still hasn't seen the HOTD film.... you simply have to. It's SO BAD that at times you think that Boll has pulled off a hilarious parody of the genre. But he hasn't. It just really is that bad.
MacGyver1138  - 7 months 22 days ago 
It is pretty interesting to see this represented with actual numbers.

The worst part about most of these is that the game stories have potential to be pretty good movies. Max Payne especially disappointed me, as they could have just followed the game storyline and thrown in some slow motion gunfights and it would have been decent. It would have been better than the convoluted mess that got made instead.
ELpork  - 7 months 22 days ago 
PFFFFT, HAHA how depressing.
Tasty_Pasta  - 7 months 22 days ago 
Gosh, how did Max Payne make 85 million?!?! That was pure garbage. It would've been a better movie if the whole thing was just somebody actually playing the game.
Oxfordcomma4  - 7 months 22 days ago 
Mortal Kombat did better than Kung Fu Hustle? DAMN!
Hurricrane  - 7 months 22 days ago 
there was a Final Fantasy movie? jeez that mustve been terrible. based on nothing, im glad it flopped
ToughGuy  - 7 months 22 days ago 
Mortal Kombat movie? Where have I been?
JDMDrifter  - 7 months 22 days ago 
what they made a super mario bros. movie how come never heard of it?
RedOutlive10  - 7 months 22 days ago 
Even if that first Tomb Raider movie made money, it is far from being 1/100 of what The Godfather is in terms of quality.
Monkeylink  - 7 months 22 days ago 
I kinda thought Jason Statham should have been in Hitman, he just would have been better
Red  - 7 months 22 days ago 
I sincerely regret all those wishes I made to god as a kid asking that video games became so popular that they would make movies about them. What a fool I was.

To redeem myself, I wish to god that they never make a Metal Gear Solid movie. Cause we all know there's just no way in hell that movie could possibly be good without it being at least a 6 hour run time, and even that's pushing it.
jtslugmaster10  - 7 months 22 days ago 
@ monkeylink

i defiantly agree with that and i havent even seen the movie but based on the commercials i think so too.

and yes tomb raider is more like 1/10^100 compared to the godfathers but Angelina is just really hot thats the only reason it did well but what can u do
somerandomchap  - 7 months 21 days ago 
ha no one likes video game movies, they are sooo bad. and that reminds me, over here in australia they are showing tomb raider 2 on tv... lucky me
crimer  - 7 months 21 days ago 
You forgot Doom.....

Best film ever.
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